


screen / shiki-e

by Harmonica_Smile (Rescue_Remedy)



Series: Inspired by [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: All Law Wants is for Chopper to be Happy, Alternate Universe, Canon Related, Canon Themes, Canonical Character Death, Cherry Blossoms, Complete, Comrades in Scrubs, Doctor broship, Embedded Images, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Hiriluk is not alive, Lami is not alive, Light Angst, One Piece Doctors, One Shot, Three Best Doctors (One Piece), Would sell his Soul for Chopper, genuary 2021, hospital au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22885498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rescue_Remedy/pseuds/Harmonica_Smile
Summary: Three doctors, four seasons.
Relationships: (past), Fushichou Marco | Phoenix Marco & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Fushichou Marco｜Phoenix Marco & Tony Tony Chopper & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Tony Tony Chopper & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Trafalgar D. Water Lammy & Trafalgar D. Water Law
Series: Inspired by [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931497
Comments: 28
Kudos: 78
Collections: Genuary 2021





	screen / shiki-e

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a-tsute](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=a-tsute).
  * Inspired by [some little things](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/562291) by a-tsute. 



> Please check out the art below for reference, but I think it can be read without them. Check them out cos' they're gorgeous then!

[tired doctors](https://chromatic-lamina.tumblr.com/post/190750232536/chromatic-lamina-i-commissioned-a-tsute-for-my). Check out the panel of painted flowers at the back of this picture I commissioned. I asked tsute about the flowers and she sent me the lovely illustration below. Right click to enlarge in a new tab.

[some little things](https://a-tsute.tumblr.com/post/610873610315366400/some-little-things). How could I _not_ make this into a story? Chopper is so reindeer-like. I love him. And see how excited the patient (kid?) in the wheelchair is :-) This picture makes me smile every time I read/see it.

**Picture uploaded with artist's permission.**

* * *

**screen / shiki-e**

* * *

The sun nudged the cold skies. Plum trees, free of leaves for winter, lined the path along the river. On his way to work, through the weak light, Law sought early blossoms. There. One bud on one stem of one tree out of ten. Discovering their secrets was the challenge. The flower would bloom in a day or two. Others were nested from sight, tucked into the kinks of the tree like a broody duck warming a cluster of eggs.

Geese paddled the river. The great white birds flew home when the cherry blossoms rustled in the longer days. Law pulled his coat close. The temperature edged to warmth degree by degree, but most days were a level of freezing and he was no stranger to the cold.

As for his colleagues, Doctors Tony and Phoenix—Marco and Chopper—they had trouble with the chill. Tony-ya was used to it, but the falling snow turned him a little wistful. The hospital cafeteria was brightened by a sliding panel depicting the seasons. The mural changed every three months, and in winter Chopper gazed at this rather than the flakes fluttering to the roads and paths outside.

He was easygoing and, even though he seemed a little sad, he let Law and Marco know time and again that he couldn't wait for spring, but before spring comes, snow falls seven times.

* * *

* * *

"Boots."

Lami looked up from the stoop of the genkan at her big brother. At his sneakers On his feet. Laces tied. Law was so bossy.

She reached for _her_ runners.

"Mum said boots. It's slush out there."

She pulled her runners onto her lap.

"You're not wearing boots."

"I'm older."

She flipped him off. "Mum said to wear boots," she repeated. Lami slipped her shoes on and did up the laces. On one side. She still had difficulty at times and Law knelt and tied the other.

"Who taught you that? It's rude."

"Sister."

"Sister?"

Lami put out a hand and Law helped her up. They wriggled into their coats and scarves and gloves, and pushed the heavy door open. The air nibbled their hands and faces, seeped through the cloth of their warm trousers and layers, froze the soles of their feet. Squashed and melting snowmen guarded the park, but the sun _was_ out and the ground visible.

"Yeah, Father Anthony said something to her then walked away, and she did this—" Lami flipped him off with both gloved fingers, a delighted grin on her face, "—behind his back."

"Don't, don't—" Law pushed her fingers down. "Don't do that in front of Mum and Dad, okay? Or Sister or Father."

Lami laughed. "They're not here, Law. Only you." She shot him the bird again and ran down the street. He puffed out a breath and chased her. Cheeky brat. The road was wet and slippery. She'd fall if he didn't catch her.

* * *

"Your socks are wet through. Look at your toes."

Law glanced down. They were a scary shade of blue.

Ms. Trafalgar whipped Law's hat from his head and hung it on the hook near the door, out of reach. He was a good kid, but a single-minded terror. He'd just drag a chair over to get it later, but for now he copped the scolding, the tops of his ears red with annoyance and the change of temperature. At getting caught and putting his sister in danger.

Their mother wiped hair, hands, feet, and made sure the towel snaked between their toes. The bath was heating up and they'd wash soon and regain colour, but Law _knew_ Amber Lead disease weakened the immune system, and because Lami was younger she was more susceptible. Law needed to be more careful.

"Wanna know what else he did?" Lami asked, wrapped up all warm and cuddly and close to her mother.

"Mmm, what?"

"He taught me this." She kept Law's eye as she raised her fingers. "He said not to do it in front of Sister or Father Anthony. Or you or Dad."

"Did he now?"

She reached out to grab her serious but wilful son, his face a tint of murderous rage, and he let her. Still too small to run away.

It snowed the next day and didn't stop for a week.

* * *

* * *

Law didn't share Tony's desire to see spring chase winter's chill away. Warm weather and new shoots pushing through the softened earth and ducklings scrambling in their mother's wake were all well and good. He and his assistant, Bepo, visited the zoo every April to check out the baby animals. But hay fever cornered him like a schoolyard bully no matter how many antihistamines he swallowed, and Marco and he always had an influx of patients with colds and the flu.

It was meant to be an accommodating season, but the ailments spiked and delayed and threatened surgeries, and when it was either very quiet or busy the doctors might be called upon to treat the many snuffling fevered patients who came in.

Law's red-rimmed eyes (from rubbing and sneezing) scared the clients more than usual. Marco and Chopper did their best to assure them he only had an allergy and wasn't contagious.

Chopper's eyes lit with the thought of spring though, like sunrise washed through ice beached at the mouth of a river. He especially looked forward to coming into the cafeteria after a long shift and enjoying the seasonal panel. The patients loved it too. It really cheered the room. Those with long-term illnesses hoped to be discharged before the murals swapped over.

Robin, the hospital's medical librarian, supervised the transition. Last year she'd commissioned an artist to paint the branches and stems of a flowering cherry tree, sakura, from one corner of the panel to the centre. Leaves cupped the base of a few blossoms, their rust tones aligning with the gold background.

The hospital wasn't affluent and helped the down-and-out, so real gold leaf wasn't worked into the paint, but the opulence of the flowers—the thought of the petals floating away from the frame and over the hospital floors, and lifting the inhabitants from every sad and painful thought they'd had, appealed to Chopper.

When he was younger, his benefactor, Doctor Hiriluk, took him to see the rows of sakura every spring, and always towards the end after strong winds had shaken many of the trees free of the pinks and reds and whites, but some petals still drifted. They both tried to catch them as they fell. The river was a cotton candy dream as they floated downstream.

Deep in the midst of winter, Hiriluk thought the flush of cherry blooms was needed to heal brittle hearts. Cold weather and cruel governance made life difficult for the residents of Drum Island, Chopper's place of birth. A few sakura flowered in late January and Hiriluk laughed as Chopper raced home to tell him that his dream had come true.

"Some strains flourish. True. It's a lesson for us. But to see everything blossom, even if just for an hour in the snow and cold? People couldn't help but come together."

Robin had great taste.

* * *

* * *

"You're too soft," Marco said. Law shot him a glance that told him to shut it.

With a tonne of chocolate and sweet-talking and clever alignment of hours _and_ volunteering to pull a few monster shifts, he'd organized an afternoon and night where Chopper, Marco and himself were free.

His attempts at flattery weren't the best even when his nose and eyes weren't watering with the pollen blown in from the cedar trees. It had taken effort, but was worth it.

Luckily beers and other drinks were in his backpack as a sneeze shook his body then another and another, frightening small green birds from their nectar harvest.

Usually Chopper would be at his side, clucking over his temperature, but he was too entranced by the blossoms floating along the river, and taking photographs of those robust and whole in the trees. They were pretty. Law rubbed at his nose with the back of his hand.

The geese hadn't returned to their colder clime yet either. The flowers signalled the change of seasons, but the three doctors were rugged up. The snow was gone, but a sharp wind blew in from the mountains.

Marco was accustomed to how the pollen bothered Law, and he wasn't alone. It was a drag for him too, though it didn't affect him so severely. He also had more patience with the many who shuffled their way through the doorway. Law usually wanted to study the latest review article or commit to some elective surgery to keep his skills up, and had to be careful not to fall sick. A patient's body was vulnerable in its recovery stage.

Oyaji had founded the hospital with Gol D. Roger back in the great age to take care of the many wounded from useless wars, and for the local folk who didn't have the cash to go elsewhere. The cherry blossoms had fluttered down then too as the two men lifted sake cups and drank to the healing of a new era.

Marco had been a Whitebeard apprentice, not sure what he wanted to be or do. He worked nearly every job from janitor to reception before Oyaji took him aside and told him to aim higher. He had the gift of restoration, he said. Use it.

They'd been surprised when a doctor of Law's capability and pedigree wanted to work with them, but one drunken night he'd told Marco how he and his guardian visited hospital after hospital trying to treat a childhood disease. The staff shunned him and screamed and yelled that he was an infectious beast. A white monster. They'd even called in the military.

He chose to work where others wouldn't, where he could help the most.

And there was something else. Marco wasn't sure what, but Law snapped at nurses and other doctors. His words should've been dripping with honey when dealing with the board members, but he was abrupt and direct. He got the job done, that was for sure, but it wouldn't have hurt him to work on his people skills.

However, with Chopper, and when he had to go to the kids' ward, he was flexible. Chopper was so good-natured he didn't even realise what he got away with. The other personnel, even Marco, and even the no-nonsense Robin, sometimes sidled up and asked him to put their requests before Law so they at least got heard, and so they didn't have to endure his gruffness. Law's empathy ran deep, but Chopper was perhaps the only one who never doubted it.

* * *

* * *

Anemone. Chopper didn't even know the name. Two huge blooms took up the entire screen. They were pretty and bright, and their large centres twisted and turned like carp in a pond, and the kids would love them, but they weren't cherry blossoms. He'd only been at the hospital a year. Spring was the time for sakura. Everyone knew. He wiped a finger under his eye.

Marco and Law pushed the door to the cafeteria, worn out after an impromptu meeting on working conditions. The new admin wanted things changed, and not always for the better. It helped having Law there. Marco's tattoo, his affiliation with the Whitebeards, was hidden under his dress shirts or scrubs, but Law was so inked he couldn't cover everything. Especially his fingers.

Generally he took notes and listened, scowled, as administrators tried to cut pay and increase hours. All it took at times for them to reconsider, was for him to sit back in his seat, elbow in the air, rubbing at the back of his neck, forearm and shoulder tattoos evident, earrings unorthodox, and DEATH tapping the table near his notebook. Or for them to grow nervous at the least.

Law had been whining about something, and Marco nodded—thinking about coffee, but both stopped and stared at the younger doctor when they heard a choked intake of air over the clanking of plates and cutlery against the lunchtime trays.

"What's wrong?" Law's tone would've had the board members fleeing for the exit, but Marco recognised alarm in the cadence, and Chopper was immune.

Maybe he'd lost a patient. It rarely happened. The kid was amazing. But when it occurred it was a solemn time for everyone, a reality you never got used to.

Chopper tried to smile, but couldn't. It was dumb. He was so young and immature. Law and Marco were brilliant.

"Spring's here, right, Chopper?" Marco asked. He patted Law's back. "He's the one who can't stop crying because of the pollen. But you were looking forward to it."

Law moved his head slightly. Now was not the time. But upset Chopper wasn't right.

"Not cherry blossoms," Chopper said.

Both the doctors glanced at him, puzzled, then at each other. They walked to the mural.

"Not..?" Law asked.

"The painting. They're purple, and red, and colourful and sweet, but they're not cherry blossoms."

"Nah, that was last year. Robin likes using more than one flower to show change," Marco said. He turned his watchband.

"How can anyone heal without the sakura blooming?"

Chopper was shaking. He was a big guy. One of those gentle, burly giants. Law took his arm, hand across his back, tucking his folder under his own arm, and propelled Chopper toward the cafeteria windows. They overlooked the green hospital grounds all the way to the river.

"You enjoyed that picture last year?" he asked.

Chopper snuffled. Trying not to be so stupid. Marco trailed behind and handed Law a pack of tissues. Law passed a clump Chopper's way. He pushed them up against his dripping nose.

He nodded.

"No-one died, right?" Marco asked.

Chopper shook his head. Law glared at Marco. Marco shrugged. He'd had to ask. There was protocol.

"Not this time 'round, but my benefactor—"

Ah, Law listened a little closer. Marco leaned in. Great men had raised them and they had lost them all.

"—loved cherry blossoms."

Law nodded, rubbed Chopper's back, and tapped the glass. "Look, Tony-ya." Chopper scrubbed at his face with the snotty tissue. Law took it from him. Dumped it in the bin, and Marco passed a clean bunch over. "See the pink on the horizon?"

Chopper squinted out the window, sucked up a curl of mucous, and nodded.

"Cherry trees."

"In bloom," Marco added.

Even if the patients couldn't leave the hospital to see them, the windows gave them a view.

* * *

* * *

Law lay down the tarpaulin and kicked off his shoes and put his backpack in the middle, placing a few containers of food on the corners that lifted in the breeze. He sniffled into his scarf.

Chopper ran around with Law's hat, trying to capture the blossoms dropping from the trees. Law passed a beer Marco's way and pulled back the tab on his own. They clinked cans and guzzled half down before lifting the lids of the containers.

Law drew his coat around him.

Marco remembered that other day, a little warmer, a plateau in front of a rushing waterfall far up a mountain. They were in a clearing, Pops and Roger, the bowls of sake. He'd only been fifteen, but Whitebeard had wanted him to be involved from the get go with the new hospital he and Roger mapped out.

He'd hung about in the trees, enjoying the flowers. They drifted to the ground and were caught in the river's torrents, and were so much a part of Roger and Whitebeard that attention was given by paying no attention at all. They'd fall and rise and bloom and fall again.

Roger had been from the clan with D in their name. There weren't so many and they were fierce and often persecuted. The ruling class of the time labelled them insurgents, needing to be weeded out and eradicated.

As he recalled, Law had that initial. He had the defiance of a D, that was for sure. Maybe more cautious than Roger, though not always. It wasn't foolhardy but they wouldn't be here enjoying the canopy of flowers above if not for him. He'd let Law know the meaning of the letter someday if he had interest.

For now, the North Blue doctor sat up and sneezed and rubbed his hand over his nose, gulped his drink and flipped two fingers at the river gliding past and at the geese bobbing on top of it. Flipped off cherry blossoms and Chopper as well, though just by chance.

"What's that about?" Marco asked.

"Sometimes you wear sneakers when boots would be better. You want cherry blossoms but you get anemones. And you had a sister who'd throw you under a bus but you'd do anything for her." Law spoke to the water.

"Even getting yourself run over?"

Law turned to Marco, nodded, remembering his mother slapping the back of his head. He gave Lami an arm burn later, but never tattletaled on her getting him in trouble. Probably because his mother would have given him another smack, or taken his medical books away.

Chopper was used to sleeping from nine pm to seven am. He hadn't got the hang of the horrendous hours the medical teams had to pull. Belladonna and a few others, even old man Crocus, had swapped shifts with Law while he organised the time off for himself and Chopper. Marco was cool. He did his own rearranging, but Law would be run into the ground more than normally in the near future. His choice.

"Amber Lead got her. She was cute as fuck and rude as hell, and she taught me that sometimes you gotta make flowers bloom in winter and not give a shit if you upset the balance of things."

"If you've got someone to look after you," Marco picked up one of the containers and picked out a slice of maki-sushi. They'd bought them from the convenience store before they left the hospital. Law had been too busy to ask the dietician to whip something up. He'd pay for that later. Sanji got his nose outta joint pretty easily when it came to food.

Marco passed the container over to Law. "Someone to take up the slack, bear the consequences."

"Always helps, right?" Law said, picking out a segment, eating it whole. His guardian, Cora-san, had taken bullets for him. "She got me in so much trouble."

Chopper was fishing Law's hat out of the river.

"You gonna get angry at that?" Marco laughed, rubbed under the lenses of his glasses.

Law groaned. Closed his eyes. Brought his knees to his chest. Continued to chew. Flipped two fingers to the air again as if it was a meditative pose. Which Marco guessed it was, for him.

"Just let me know that it's filled with petals."

They were impossible to catch from the air. Easier in the water. Scungier too, but easier.

"To the brim."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and especially to [a-tsute](https://a-tsute.tumblr.com/) for her wonderful art and generosity.
> 
> Here is her [twitter](https://twitter.com/tsute_a). The first link is her tumblr.
> 
> What do you think of Law and Marco tired out in the hospital? I'm so happy with that commission.
> 
> Okay, the small birds in this are [mejiro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warbling_white-eye), or white-eye. I only know them as mejiro.
> 
> This is the tradition of [shiki-e](http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/s/shikie.htm), or changing artworks by season.
> 
> This is [jewellery Ice](https://digjapan.travel/en/blog/id=11862) from Hokkaido. I was trying for this image with Chopper's excitement showing in his eyes, but it's probably not that well known, so I don't know how the metaphor went.
> 
> I'm referencing, but not using too deeply, an old proverb from the north part of Japan that _Before spring comes, snow falls seven times_.
>
>> 越後では 七雪降って 春来たる / Echigodewa nanayuki hutte haru kitaru.
> 
> I can read some of that, but my kanji skills are pretty atrocious. A friend taught it to me awhile back. I'm using her transliteration.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I'll edit it a bit over the day, and I'd love to know your thoughts.
> 
>  **My tumblr** : [chromatic-lamina](https://chromatic-lamina.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  **My twitter** : [@ChromaticLamina](https://twitter.com/ChromaticLamina)
> 
> Don't forget to drop a kudos or comment if you liked it. It lets us know that we're not writing into the void. Thanks!


End file.
